A Stitch in Time/Transcript
Sherlock Holmes (phone): Watson, you still over there? Joan Watson (phone): Yes, I'm still here because I can't go home because of you. Why did you bring the bees in the house anyway? Holmes (phone): Varroa mites are a pernicious threat to the colony. I intended a thorough inspection, as well as an application of baker's sugar as a preventative measure. My thoughts were concerned with colony collapse. I failed to see the more urgent threat of table collapse. Watson (phone): Wait a second. You're not talking about my table, are you? The one I bought for my apartment? Holmes (phone): Two hours should be sufficient to return the hive to stasis. I'll be in touch. Watson: Ugh. Do you have a roommate? Hannah Gregson: No. Watson: Don't get one. Ever. Hannah: Trouble in paradise? Watson: Well, nothing a good exterminator couldn't solve. Hannah: Tonight still a good night to talk? Watson: Yeah, let's just get out of here. I need coffee that wasn't made by a cop. Hannah: Three neighborhood drugstores, all in my precinct, all robbed in the last month. None of the stores had security cameras but all the robberies took place right when the owners were closing up. Descriptions of the perps match in all three, and also, they only took prescription pills. High street value. Oxy, hydrocodone. Watson: Sounds like it was all done by the same crew. Hannah: I've been re-interviewing witnesses, putting in extra hours, keeping an eye on the other stores but uh, I'm not making much headway. Watson: Is there a detective on this case? Hannah: Hanford. I'm not trying to step on his toes, I'm...I don't want to be disrespectful but, but his plate's kind of full right now. It's my neighborhood. My partner and I, we, we have to look these people in the eye every day. They're scared. It would mean a lot to them. A lot to me, if I could bring this one home. Watson: All right. I'll take a look. Um, I'll let you know if anything comes up. Carlos (phone): I know it's late here. Well, you wanted to go to school out west, no? Or is it just that I'm keeping you from a party? Hey, I'm sorry. Yeah, some drunk idiot and he almost hit me. No, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. I guess the bars must be letting out. Carlos: What the hell? Hey! Hey! Hey, man, what's wrong? What a drunk idiot. I tell you, man, you had an angel looking out for you tonight. Dr. Eugene Hawes: You said you knew this guy. Holmes: I was an admirer. Garrison Boyd was president of the Five Boroughs Sceptics Association. He was a debunker of the highest order. He was a bright light of reason in a sea of gullibility and magical thought. He was a professional doubter. Hawes: Of? Holmes: Pseudoscience, the paranormal, organized religion. All the usual bollocks. He wrote a blog that I rather enjoyed. Hawes: Did he believe in crowbars? Because I'm pretty sure that's what caved his skull in. Holmes: You put the time of death at approximately one hour before his car was found. Hawes: I'm guessing whoever killed him was hoping that the impact of the train would hide the real cause of death. Holmes: It says here you removed a small, conical object from beneath his right eye socket. Hawes: After he was struck, he fell forward. This got wedged under his eye on the way down. Don't know what it is yet. I'm sending it to the lab. Holmes: It's the tip of a hat. You are familiar with the vile practice of lawn ornamentation? The worst offenders employ garden gnomes, yea big, white beards... Hawes: Pointy red hats. Holmes: If he wasn't so dead, I suspect Mr. Boyd would find it ironic that a diminutive wood spirit played a role in his murder. He was particularly aggressive in his pursuit of those who sought to profit from their hoaxes, so...perhaps his persistence is the reason he now lies here. Hawes: You really think being debunked is a reason to kill somebody? Holmes: Some of the most aggressive correspondence on his web site came from local ghost tour operators, hawkers of phony medical cures. I think one recent exposé target might have not so much a reasonable motive for murder as a lower standard for committing one. Because he's almost certainly insane. Finn: I won't pretend that Mr. Boyd and I didn't have a contentious relationship. He took issue with the church on more than one occasion. Holmes: You mean, he took issue with your cult. Finn: He misused that term as well. That's just the kind of rigid, closed-minded thinking that I preach against here. At one time or another, every great religion has been attacked as a cult. Holmes: So have most cults. Excuse me for a minute, would you? Detective Bell: Where are you...? Look, the victim published almost two dozen threatening responses you sent him, after he posted a few articles criticizing the church's recruitment methods. Finn: Well, I have the right to respond, if somebody publishes lies about what we're trying to do here. Bell: You told Mr. Boyd that his attacks had begun a chain reaction that would lead to "his removal from this physical reality." Finn: We meditate here. We practice energy transference. So when I wrote to him, I was merely absorbing his hateful energy and reflecting it back. Did I harm him physically? No. Did I appeal to the quantum source for swift and final justice? Perhaps. Bell: In other words, you prayed for the guy to die. Finn: That's not a crime, is it? Holmes: So we're done here. The church held a 12-hour service last night. Attendance was mandatory, so no one here could have killed Garrison Boyd. Bell: We're just taking your new friend's word for it? Holmes: Her name is Aria. And yes, we are. When it became clear this one would do little more than proselytize, I scanned his herd and realized that Aria was having second thoughts about being here. Finn: Aria's a level-three conduit. Holmes: After a brief conversation with Aria, a.k.a. Elizabeth Weinberg, I was able to determine that some unresolved issues from her childhood had led to a transference of a need for structure and discipline onto Mr. Finn. Elizabeth agreed, and has forthwith terminated her relationship with your church. Finn: What? Bell: Wait a second, are you saying you deprogrammed her? Holmes: I would never use such a rigid and closed-minded term. She did, however, share some useful information on the church's methods. Apparently, their esteemed leader likes to send his acolytes out to follow, photograph and harass people who dare to criticize him. So she's currently in your office, e-mailing me the dossier you compiled on Garrison Boyd. I'm hopeful it will shed some additional light on his final days. Ms. Weinberg is leaving with us. Any attempt to hinder her return to her former life will be met with an energy transference most unpleasant. Captain Gregson: Joan. Watson: Oh, hey. Thomas: Heard you were helping Hannah with something. Watson: Yeah, there's been some robberies in her precinct. She wants to help. Thomas: You sure it's not a bother? Watson: No, not at all. I got into it this morning and now I'm helping Sherlock with this homicide he's working. Thomas: Oh, just make sure she knows whose consultant you really are. Watson: All right. Holmes: So when were you going to inform me that we're assisting Hannah Gregson on a case? Watson: You could hear all that? We aren't helping her, okay? I am. And it's not a secret. I'm just gonna run down a lead or two. It shouldn't take too much time. Holmes: It took time this morning. Watson: So is this everything from the church? Holmes: It is a testament to the insidiousness of cult thinking. A charismatic loon like Finn warps impressionable minds and then sends them to stalk and harass. Watson: And here I thought they just sold flowers at the airport. Holmes: I find the practice repulsive, but in this case, it may have played in our favor. Two cult members were assigned to Garrison Boyd in the weeks before his murder. Thanks to their long lenses and meticulous note-taking, we may have a person of interest a man by the name of Collin Eisely. Collin Eisley: I'm sorry, I need to catch up a little, here. Have I been under police surveillance? Watson: No, those were taken by someone who was interested in that man, Garrison Boyd. Holmes: We have hundreds of photographs, in all manner of activities. Those are the only ones where he appears to be in heated altercation with a man two days before he was murdered. Eisley: This guy was murdered? Watson: Last night. Do you wanna tell us how you knew him? Eisley: I didn't. Uh, the day these were taken, he was waiting for me outside my building. I'd never seen him before. I'm confused. Does being accosted by a lunatic make me a murder suspect? Holmes: Well that depends on why he accosted you. Eisley: I'm in real estate. Late last year, I looked at some beach properties out on Long Island. I made this woman an offer on her house, she said no. A few months later, this nut comes out of the woodwork and accuses me of trying to scare her into moving. Watson: Scare her how? Eisley: According to him, she was hearing things in her house. Voices, banging, I don't know. She thought it was ghosts, he thought it was me. Holmes: Was it? Eisley: Of course not. She didn't wanna sell, I moved on, end of story. Holmes: Mmm. I see you've amassed, um, quite an art collection here, Mr. Eisely. That's an interest that requires a great deal of money and a very competitive spirit. I imagine you're not the sort of person who takes no for an answer very often. Eisley: I'm also not the sort who goes around scaring little old ladies. Watson: Can you tell us where you were last night between the hours of 10 p.m. and midnight? Eisley: At a retirement party for a friend. A few of us went out for drinks after that. I'll get you their names and numbers. Watson: If that guy was interested in the property, there's a possibility that other developers were too. Holmes: You're wondering if one of them gaslit the owner, then killed Boyd, lest he expose them? Watson: Makes more sense than ghosts, doesn't it? Claire Renziger: Well, I wouldn't say "ghosts," plural. It was my husband, Harry. I know because I heard him. He was talking to me. Holmes: Your husband passed away...? Renziger: Oh, coming up on a year now. Watson: We know that Colin Eisely made an offer on the house a few months ago. Did anyone else approach you? Renziger: Yes, once, but that was almost 20 years go. I don't think that company is even in business now. Watson: Did you tell anyone else about the voices you were hearing? Rengier: Only my daughter. She was the one who called that poor man, Mr. Boyd. And she wanted him to convince me that I was imagining things. She has such a literal mind. I've always told her she should be more open. Watson: So she didn't hear the voice. Renziger: And she never heard any of Harry's tantrums, either. Holmes: Tantrums? Renziger: He knocked some glasses out of that cabinet there. Lights flickered. Sometimes, he shook the whole house. Oh, he was angry, and he was letting me know. Watson: And why would he have been angry? Renziger: Sometimes we had an open marriage. Other times we didn't. And when we didn't, I did some things that I never told him about. And now that he's dead, he knows everything. Holmes: That's quite a one-two punch, isn't it? Discovering you're dead and a cuckold. Renziger: It doesn't bother me that you don't believe me. Holmes: I fear that I too, may be cursed with a literal mind. If, however, you are not experiencing delusions, it may be possible that someone is trying to take advantage of you. Watson: You said Harry spoke to you, what did he say? Renziger: I have it on tape. You could listen for yourself. Renziger: The clearest I ever heard Harry's voice was when I was down here, so I started leaving my tape recorder on all the time. You have to turn the volume all the way up to hear his voice. Tape recorder: Im haram. Watson: Im haram. Renziger: No, no. He's saying a name. Jim Harmon. That's the man I had the affair with. Harry really shook the whole house that night. And then he started yelling Jim's name. Tape recorder: Im haram. Renziger: Well, do you still think I'm imagining things? Holmes: I apologize, Mrs. Renziger. You most certainly are not. You mentioned that some glasses were knocked off the cabinet upstairs. That cabinet rests against this wall, yes? Renziger: Yes, the living room is right above it. Holmes: How well do you know your neighbors? Renziger: Jerry and Paula? They moved in here about the same time as I did. But they're snowbirds. They won't be back from Florida for a few more weeks. Holmes: Well, good neighbors often exchange keys. Are you a good neighbor, Mrs. Renziger? Holmes: The voice on the recording did not say "Jim Harmon" it said "im haram." It's a common Arabic obscenity. Watson: So you think that voice was coming from all the way over here in the neighbor's basement. Holmes: No, I think someone shortened the distance considerably. Along with the voice, I heard a distinct banging and a low rumbling frequency on the recording. That, along with the rest of Mrs. Renziger's account, the uh, vibrations, the flickering lights, all suggest that someone was employing digging equipment near the foundation of her home. Watson: There were no signs of digging outside, so you think it was all happening down here? Is that a tunnel? Holmes: With a termination point somewhere near the foundation of Mrs. Renziger's home. Watson: Why would someone do all this, dig from this basement to hers? Holmes: I know a way to find out. Watson: Did you find anything? Holmes: I have, indeed. Mrs. Renziger was not visited by her husband's ghost. She may, however, have been visited by terrorists. Holmes: Meet Ruby. She's a transatlantic data cable. The fastest in the world and a backbone of the North American Internet. Captain Thomas Gregson: She looks like a garden hose. Holmes: It's a curse of the modern age that very significant things appear commonplace. Now, Ruby is one of several undersea cables which connects Europe to the United States. The full spectrum of commerce and communication flows through her optic fibers, as well as the requisite glut of pornography and cat videos. Thomas: And you knew that was what that cable was how? Holmes: The location of such cables is mapped. They're accessible with very little effort. The intent is to avoid entanglements and utility mishaps, but it also makes them amongst the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the world. Bell: And this basement's probably a pretty smart place to dig from. And anywhere along the beach would attract attention, out in the ocean would be a lot harder. Holmes: And the cable ties into a landing house another quarter of a mile inland, at which point security increases markedly. What our attackers did not account for was the intrusion of Garrison Boyd. Bell: Right, so someone runs tunneling equipment out of the Ayers' basement while they're away for the winter. Mrs. Renziger hears the noise and thinks it's her dead husband, so her daughter asks Boyd to prove otherwise, and then Boyd finds all this, same way you and Joan did? Holmes: This little fella was amongst the gardening equipment over there. The tip of his hat is missing. Mr. Boyd was murdered in this room. Thomas: The killer loads the body into Boyd's car, drives it back into the city, but then what? Why not come back and cut the cable? Figured Boyd found them, someone else might be coming too? Holmes: Perhaps. Or perhaps the fact that Ruby has not been cut signals a much greater threat. The Internet is designed with redundancies. Cutting a single cable would no doubt cause some problems, but a coordinated attack, that could be crippling. Bell: You think there might be other guys digging up other cables, waiting for a signal to cut them all at once? Holmes: I think it's a possibility that we should consider. Thomas: I'll reach out to DHS. Let them know what's going on. Watson: I'll check back with you. So you were right. Whoever dug that tunnel stuck mostly to the basement. But they did come here every now and then. Holmes: Yes, naturally. If the man or men or women were here to do arduous work, the hours would have been long, they would have needed to eat, hydrate and, of course, expel waste. Watson: Toilet seat was up, so I'm guessing at least one person was a "he." Also we found this in the fridge. Holmes: "Doogh." Carbonated yogurt drink popular in Arab countries. Watson: It's hard to believe bubbling yogurt is popular anywhere. I figured it didn't belong to the Ayers, so I called the American distributor. No place on the island sells it. Six stores in the city do. They're e-mailing me a list. So assuming these stores have surveillance cameras, we can check their footage from the last few weeks, see if anyone jumps out. Watson: Hannah, come in. So I have good news. Hannah: Don't tell me you solved it already. Watson: Actually, you already had all the pieces. Now, you said that all three drugstores were robbed around closing time. At first, I assumed what you probably did. That it was because closing is when a store is most vulnerable. Hannah: No customers, fewer employees, most cash on hand. Watson: But in this case, there was something else. Now, two of the pharmacists told you that a candy-machine vendor had come by just before the robberies. I checked, and that same vendor has machines in all three stores. Hannah: You think the vendor's in on it. He scopes out the stores and then tells his accomplices if it's all clear. Watson: A friend took these today. Vending machine company uses this warehouse to store their inventory and do repairs. Look at these guys. Height, hair color, visible tattoos. Hannah: They match the descriptions of the three perps. Watson: They definitely don't look like they're in the gumball business. Hannah: Mmm. You found them. I can't believe it. I mean, I can. I'm not surprised. But thank you. Watson: Odds are, this is where they're storing the stolen pills. When you bring this to Detective Hanford, feel free to leave my name out of it. My guess is, the department's gonna wanna sit on this place for a while. Hannah: Why? Watson: As long as it doesn't look like another robbery is imminent, they're gonna want to follow the drugs up the food chain. With the amount of pills these guys are stealing, they probably have help moving them. So this could lead to bigger fish. Holmes: It took no small amount of negotiation, but I was able to procure security footage from each of the doogh-selling ethnic markets that you identified. Now, taking into account the hours Claire Renziger did and did not hear ghosts, it would appear that our tunneler kept hours between 8 to 6. So it stands to reason that he bought his doogh and other provisions at either the beginning or end of each day. Watson: Oh, that's great. It'll help us move through these faster. Holmes: Assuming you're not still splitting your time between the tribulations of a beat cop and the hunt for a likely terrorist. Watson: May I remind you that "beat cop" is our boss's daughter? Holmes: Is that why you were helping her? To curry favor? Watson: I'm helping her because she asked me. Holmes: What do you think of her? Watson: Hannah? She's nice. Holmes: What do you think of her as an investigator? Watson: Oh, she's green. I mean, she's dedicated. She did all the legwork, she just couldn't connect all the dots. Why? Holmes: Oh, it just confirms a long-held suspicion. She's middling. Watson: Hold on, I did not say she was middling. Holmes: That's sad, because she is the daughter of a colleague and he has certain aspirations for her. Watson: Excuse me, but have you ever even talked to Hannah? Holmes: Twice. Watson: That's it? That all you needed to size her up? Holmes: I also looked at her records. Understand Watson, I think she's a perfectly capable police officer. She knows how to handle herself in a confrontation and she's first-rate with a weapon. What I fear she is not, however, is a detective. Watson: Give me a break. Holmes: It's a calling, Watson. No one knows that better than you. Watson: I learned because you taught me. Holmes: I taught you because I saw something. Watson: What if I told you I see something in Hannah? Holmes: I would tell you you're mistaken. Watson: You know what? I'll be in my room. Holmes: Thought I'd let you sleep in. You found my notes? Watson: Well, sort of hard to miss. Holmes: Watched the video? Watson: I take it this is our suspect? Holmes: Note the coveralls. The tape you're watching records his fifth appearance at the store in a span of two weeks. During that period of time, his clothes get progressively dirtier, save for two rectangular spots on his knees. Presumably, he wore some knee pads while he was digging his tunnel. Watson: Well presumably isn't "definitely." He may just be a plumber. And I see he didn't use his credit card. Holmes: As is his wont. Unfortunately, he can't be identified via receipts. The woman in the red coat, however... Watson: She knows him. Holmes: She paid with her American Express. Her name is Yolanda Massee and I'm stepping into her elevator as we speak. I'll call you when I know more. Yolanda Massee: Yes? Holmes: Hello. Ms. Massee? My name is Sherlock Holmes. I'm a consultant with the New York Police. I was hoping I might ask you a few questions. Massee: Do you have a badge? Holmes: I'm afraid I'm quite allergic to iconography. I was just, I was hoping you might be able to tell me this man's name. Massee: Heh. Is this a joke? Holmes: No. Massee: I think it's Nazim or Nadim. I'm not really sure. Holmes: But you know him? Massee: I don't know. How well do you know your neighbors? Holmes: He's your neighbor? Massee: He lives right there. Holmes: I'd recommend you leave your building right now. Massee: What? Why? Holmes: Your neighbor heard us talking and he is currently dousing his apartment with accelerant. Go on! Holmes: Nadim? Or is it Nazim? You might find this hard to believe, but I'm actually here to help you. Nadim Al-Haj: Don't come any closer. Holmes: You're not a terrorist at all, are you? No. Look, I'm open to the possibility that Garrison Boyd's death was an accident. He caught you unawares and you panicked. But if you drop that lighter, you will be attempting murder on the 200 or so other people who live in this building. Holmes: This contraption was at the heart of the drawings on Nadim Al-Haj's walls. I only had a moment to absorb them before they were engulfed in flames, but it was clear that he never intended to sever the cable that he excavated. Rather, I think his plan was to splice this device onto it. Thomas: You think you can figure out what it does? TARU Senior Tech: I won't know until we cut off the melted plastic, but hopefully, enough of the circuitry inside is intact. Holmes: If I was a betting man, I'd say that it was meant to collect information and transmit it elsewhere. TARU Senior Tech: You're thinking this is one big data grab. Thomas: Why not hack into it from a computer somewhere? There's gotta be an easier way than digging that tunnel. Holmes: Ask the NSA. According to Edward Snowden, U.S. Intelligence agencies routinely tap into these cables upstream of their official tie-ins so they can better monitor American citizens. TARU Senior Tech: The first time Ruby feeds above ground is at 60 Hudson, downtown. Big banks have offices there to get financial data first, but it's also where a lot of info gets encrypted and after that, it's harder to spy on. Actually, digging a hole on Long Island makes a lot of sense. Thomas: So you're saying my phone might ring at any minute, telling me this guy works for our government? Holmes: Perhaps. Or a foreign one. Or a corporation. Who in this day and age does not view information as power? TARU Senior Tech: Hopefully, the device will tell us what information the perp was capturing. E-mails, trade secrets, credit-card numbers. If we're lucky, we'll even get an IP address where it was being sent. Then we'll have a better idea of what we're dealing with. Bell: Nadim Al-Haj, born in Iraq in 1978. He emigrated to the U.S. in '06 and became a citizen two years ago. He was an electrical engineer in his country, but he's been working here as a lineman for the cable company. Watson: So he definitely had the skills. Bell: Yeah, a few parking summonses but no criminal record that I could find. Watson: What's that about? Bell: Oh, you didn't hear? Hannah made a big collar on her patrol this morning. Everyone's been messing with the Captain over it. Watson: Oh. What'd she do? Bell: She spotted a perp who matched the description off a few drugstore robberies on her beat. Now, he took off into a warehouse, she and her partner followed, scooped him up and found almost 200 grand worth of pills. Watson: That's pretty lucky. Bell: Well, that ain't luck. That's DNA. She's good. Watson: Hey, you know, I just realized I forgot, I have to run an errand. I'll...just tell Sherlock I'll catch up. Bell: All right. Captain, this is all we could find on Nadim Al-Haj. It isn't much. Finest message is out on him and his van, and Homeland Security's issued a BOLO to Port Authority, Amtrak and TSA. Holmes: The apartment Mr. Al-Haj occupied is owned by "The Collin Eisely Group"? Thomas: You know that name? Holmes: I do. Watson and I paid a visit to Collin Eisely yesterday. He's a developer. Several months ago, he made a bid on the house next to the one with the tunnel. Bell: You mean the one that's actually much closer to the cable? Holmes: The man who murdered Garrison Boyd lives in a building that you own. What do you suppose the odds are of that being a coincidence? Eisley: I own several buildings, which together, house hundreds of tenants. It may surprise you to know that I'm not on a first-name basis with any of them. Holmes: Interesting that you should mention names, because you changed yours, did you not? Bell: Before you got into real estate, you were a stockbroker, and until a few years ago, your legal name was Louis Eisely. Collin was your middle name. Now, we're guessing the decision to change it has something to do with you serving 18 months for insider trading? Eisley: The name change was aboveboard. I'm not breaking any laws. My real-estate dealings go much more smoothly when my criminal record isn't the first thing people learn about me. Holmes: I imagine they would. Because Louis Eisely was a particularly cutthroat Wall Street trader. From the early 2000s. A man whose downfall, at the height of his career, made his name synonymous with Wall Street greed. Eisley: I did my time. Prison changed me. Holmes: I'm not so sure that it did. Trading in secrets put you on top. Does a man like you ever really lose a taste for that? Eisley: You still haven't explained what it is you think I did. Bell: You hired Nadim Al-Haj to tap a transatlantic data cable called Ruby. Runs right past Claire Renziger's basement. So, first, you tried to buy her house. When she turned you down, you had Al-Haj dig a tunnel from next door, instead. Eisley: And why would I have done any of that? Holmes: Because you have a savant's talent for turning information into gold. Ruby is the motherlode. Tapping into her would give you unfettered access to a wealth of intelligence with which to inform your investment strategies. Eisley: That's actually brilliant. I wish I had thought of it back when I was trading. I can't go near the market. The SEC has banned me from trading until the day I die. By court order, every dollar I have in stocks is in a blind trust. You can look it up. Holmes: Perhaps you're selling the information for a price. Eisley: And keep the proceeds where? In my mattress? The Feds audit all my accounts. I can't win at bingo without them taking notice. Gentlemen, I have more important things to do with my day. You're fishing, I'm not biting. Watson: Hannah. I just heard the news. Congratulations. Hannah: Thanks. Watson: So I thought it was interesting how you just happened to spot the suspect, took a whole stash house down. Hannah: You said to leave you out of it. Watson: This is not about credit, Hannah. This is about doing the right thing. The right thing would've been to kick it upstairs. Let Hanford take it from there. Hannah: Right. Go after bigger fish. Watson: So, why didn't you? Hannah: You and I know if I turned this over to Hanford, I would've ended up a footnote. If it did lead to bigger fish, not even that. Watson: But you don't know that. Hannah: I do. Because I'm a cop. I've seen it. I know how it works. Watson: And I'm not a cop, right? Hannah: It's just different for me. Sergeant's exam is coming up. I get extra points for commendations. Watson: I thought you were doing this to help the people on your beat. Or is that something you thought I wanted to hear? Hannah: I did help them. I got some bad guys off the street. Watson: Just not as many as you could have. Hannah: You helped me when I needed help. I won't forget it. Watson: Hey, I just ran into Marcus downstairs. He told me about Collin Eisely. Sounds like it didn't go well. Holmes: I'm no less convinced of his connection to Garrison Boyd's murder. You know, because of his history, Mr. Eisely's money is in a blind trust. Watson: That means he can't touch it, right? Holmes: More than that, he can't even know how it's managed. Now, Eisely's trust is handled by Robiskie Investments, a second-tier brokerage house at best. I suspect more prominent firms refused his business because of the miasma that still surrounds him. His investments are all in computer-traded funds, which deliver a return far less than the profits he once made. Watson: That's got to burn. Holmes: Indeed. A man who had spent his entire life exploiting weaknesses in the financial system would surely chafe at such restrictions. Watson: So you thought he wanted to tap into Ruby in order to profit off the information, but there's no way he can profit. Holmes: Or that I've found thus far. But I'm confident that when TARU deliver its report, that mystery box is gonna connect Eisely to the crime. In the meantime, I found this. A decade ago, when Western companies were pillaging Iraq's resources in the name of reconstruction, Eisely toured the oil fields near Kirkuk. Watson: That's Nadim Al-Haj. Holmes: Al-Haj was his driver. He subsequently sponsored his immigration into the U.S. Now, "lived in his building" could be written off to chance. This cannot. Bell: Hey, a senior technician from TARU is on his way up. Says he's got some news. TARU Senior Tech: Parts of it were pretty badly fused, but we were able to forensically reconstruct most of the circuitry. Watson: And? TARU Senior Tech: It doesn't look like it was meant to transmit anything anywhere. Bell: So, what was it supposed to do? TARU Senior Tech: That's the thing. It doesn't store anything. It doesn't re-route anything. It doesn't change anything. It's just a maze of circuits. Data goes in one end and comes out the other. That's it. Bell: So someone went to all the trouble of digging a tunnel, exposing a transatlantic Internet cable and murdering a guy, all so they could attach a devise that... Holmes: Does absolutely nothing. Watson: I just got off the phone with Marcus. So far, Nadim Al-Haj has done a pretty good job of disappearing. Holmes: He's gone to ground. Knowing now he's not a hardened terrorist, I imagine he's quite afraid. A murder and a flight from the law were not part of his plan. Watson: Mason? Mason: Hey. Watson: I thought you were grounded. Mason: From the Internet. I mean, does this look like the Internet to you? Watson: So, where New York's finest nerds failed, you're hoping yours will succeed? Holmes: No offense to TARU. But the simple fact is they must've missed something. Nadim Al-Haj did not dig a 50-foot tunnel in order to install a plastic bauble with as much function as a Christmas light. Until we find out what the devise does, we cannot connect Collin Eisely to any crime. So I've solicited a second opinion. It's my hope that Mason will find something that the police technicians missed. Mason: I'm trying. But don't hold your breath. I'm running parity bit tests, file compares, metadata compares, different character sets, packet sizes... Watson: You're running tests. We get it. I'm gonna get something to eat. Holmes: Upstairs, may I presume that was Hannah that you sent to voicemail? Watson: Yeah, I didn't think she was gonna leave a message, but she did. Said she didn't feel great about how we left things, and wanted to thank me. She didn't really come out and say it, but I got the sense that what she really wanted to know is what I'm gonna tell the Captain. Holmes: What are you gonna tell him? Watson: I don't know. I mean, he's gonna wanna know what happened, right? She's a police officer, but she's also his daughter. Holmes: Obviously the truth will disappoint. Watson: I should tell him. Holmes: You should not. You've expended enough time and effort on Hannah Gregson. Telling him will only embroil you further and benefit no one. Watson: Well, thanks for not actually saying the words "I told you so." Holmes: Well, for the record, I thought she was a subpar investigator. I'd no idea she was so cunning. Anyway, I sent Mason home for the night. Thus far, his tests uphold the dignity of the N.Y.P.D. The stream of zeroes and ones generated by his tests entered one end of the device and emerged a consistent four milliseconds later, unchanged. It is quite literally a box that does nothing. Unless that's the whole point. Watson: What? Holmes: The four milliseconds that doing nothing would take. Watson: What difference would four milliseconds make to anything? Holmes: In your world and mine, none at all. To a human being, it's a imperceptible amount of time. But the lion's share of trading on Wall Street happens automatically, via computers. And in their world, milliseconds translate to millions of dollars. Ruby is the fastest transatlantic cable that there is. Terminates on American soil at 60 Hudson Street, where, in order to extract financial data first, the top investment firms pay a premium to house their servers. Now, any company which does not lease a space at 60 Hudson is at instant disadvantage. Would you care to guess which firm is not flush with enough capital to earn a spot at 60 Hudson? Watson: Robiskie Investments. They manage your blind trust. Only their servers are in a different building. Their data comes in from a slower transatlantic cable. One that is usually two milliseconds behind. Holmes: A market closes halfway around the world, currency drops, a regime falls, the news hurdles across the globe at the speed of light. The larger firms' computers buy and sell thousands of shares before the one that holds your money even gets the news. Bell: So you planned to turn the tables. Slow Ruby down by four milliseconds. Suddenly the big firms are the ones at a disadvantage. Your blind trust would start making more money. And your hands would stay clean. Watson: Other firms and clients would benefit too, anyone who pulled their data from a source other than Ruby. Holmes: But for a man pathologically driven to play the game, that's a small price to pay. Might even be a plus. Given that it would hide your gains amongst the crowd. Eisley: You give me a lot of credit. Like I said before, it's a brilliant plan. But even if you're right, you still have a problem. You can't link me to any of it. Bell: Well, when my colleagues and I got together this morning, I said the same thing. I also asked about something that's been bugging me. When you first hired Nadim Al-Haj, the job didn't include murder. Once he killed Garrison Boyd, you must've promised him a pretty big payday to keep him quiet. Especially with him going on the run for who knows how long. But with your finances watched so closely, how could you pay him? Holmes: When I crossed paths with Mr. Al-Haj the other day, he absconded with a poster tube, a conspicuous detail in itself, given that he was so busy destroying so much other evidence. I thought perhaps he'd retained a keepsake, some schematics, some leverage to hold over you should the need arise. But when Detective Bell raised his question, I remembered noticing something when we were here yesterday. That's not the same painting that was here the first time we visited. It was a Picasso. Woman's Portrait. Not well-known, but even a lesser work by the master must be worth millions. Is it here? Watson: We've already reported it stolen. No dealer is gonna touch it. Al-Haj won't be able to get a dime. Bell: You tell us if we're wrong, Mr. Eisely. But we don't get the sense he's a professional killer. It's only a matter of time before we find him. And given that his payday's going away, it's a good bet that when we do, he'll talk. Now, you like to make deals, right? How about before we find him, you make one right now? Thomas: Oh, Joan? Watson: Hi. Thomas: Nice work today. On the Eisely thing. Watson: Oh, thanks. I'll pass that on to Sherlock. Thomas: I'm sorry. Watson: For what? She told you? Thomas: You just seemed a little off these last couple of days. I know it wasn't the credit. You and Holmes don't care about that stuff, but...whatever it was... Watson: You know what? She just got excited. That's all. Thomas: I don't think you should help her again. She is what she is. She wants what she wants. I love her but I love this job too. The people who do it...she's gotta do better. Watson: All right, good night. Category:Transcripts